5G journey in Chile

1. Telemedicine with 5G

In June 2019, we demonstrated the first Telemedicine of Chile using 5G, together with the operator ENTEL and government regulator SUBTEL. The high throughput and low latency of 5G offer the perfect combination to do a remote echography.

This was executed sending movements through 5G from the hand of a doctor using a joystick in order to guide a remote paramedic using a haptic glove. It was a challenge because both millimeter band in 28Ghz and mid-bands 3,5Ghz were combined in the same geographical space. This is an ideal example of how 5G technology can be used to generate a significant impact in society.

Incidentally, this use case also resonated with me on a personal level. Indeed medicine has been present in my life since I was very young. Partly because my mother is a Surgeon, but also because my wife is a Dermatologist. A dream converted into reality with 5G is enabling medicine from specialists reaching whichever patient without geographical limitations.

2. Air quality monitoring with 4G and 5G

To push the boundaries of collaboration yet further, we agreed to build a consortium with Triple Helix across government, academia and industry. 

In November 2019, together with Centro Mario Molina, ENTEL, we launched the first experimental air quality network using 4,5G technologies. Normally an area is monitored using a fixed sensor, but in Chile for the first time, one sensor in movement can monitor thousands of kilometers along a path. 
 
This challenge was a success thanks to the trucks provided by Scania and Transporte Ricardo Concha as well as buses provided by Volvo and Subus. This is a perfect example on how partnerships across sectors and expertise areas can enable us to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This, of course, is a critical demand of the exponential roadmap to halve emissions by 2030.

 

3. Industry 4.0 with 5G

In July 2019, we collaborated with ABB to demonstrate the first trial of an Industry 4.0 application using 5G to remotely control a mining engine for conveyors at the ABB University in downtown Santiago and a robotic arm located at the Santiago South headquarters of INACAP 15km away.

Mining has always been an industry that catches my attention because you see a tradeoff between the power of nature and the power of transformation from human being. Our use case demonstrates how 5G can contribute to a safer mining environment, reduce emissions and make the operation much more efficient. You can watch a video of the demonstration:

 

4. The 1st 5G Drone of Latin America 

5 days reduced to 5 hours with the 1st Drone 5G of Latin America for precision Agriculture lead by Ericsson, ENTEL combining the “Triple Helix” of Academia, Government & Private Sector. 

“The 1st 5G Drone of Latin America is in the air to fulfill precision agriculture requirements reducing the normal work from 5 days to 5 hours.

The Drone has been a result of a joint development lead by Ericsson Chile combining the 5G technologies deployed with ENTEL supported by the Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones of the Chilean Government.

The important “Triple Helix” combination was put into action with help from the Government, stakeholders from Private Sector, such as Loiter Systems, Botlink USA, LG, Qualcomm as well as researchers from Universidade Federatitva do Pará Brasil, Inatel Brasil, and Universidad de Chile linking Academia.” Stated Roberto Cabanillas Acerbi – Digital Service Director of Ericsson Chile. 

Chile, October 1st, 2021  

The challenge to build the 1st 5G Drone of Latin America was under the objective of achieving a new level of productivity enabled with 5G.

Nowadays, precision agriculture assessments and fumigation takes approximately 5 days which could be reduced to 5 hours with the 1st Drone of 5G of Latin America.

The development and assembly of the the 1st Drone took 12 months, with engineers working from home and labs in Chile, Brasil, and the USA. 

The 5G Drone was a project led by Ericsson Chile with ENTEL, supported by Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones of the Chilean Government, Loiter Systems, Botlink, LG, Qualcomm, Universidad de Chile, Inatel Brasil, and Universidade Federativa do Pará.  

The official launch flight was done in a rural area near Santiago, Chile, analyzing fruits on December 7th, 2020 at the Campus Sur Antumapu from Facultad Ciencias Agronómicas y Facultad de Ciencias Forestales y Conservación de la Naturaleza from the Universidad de Chile. 

ENTEL and Ericsson enabled a 5G zone using Instant Spectrum Sharing and Carrier Aggregation capabilities of 5G and 4G to have bandwith greater than 300Mbps. 

Here is a glance to the 1st flight of the 5G Drone:

The Drone equipped with 5G telecommunications introduces advantages that can increase productivity for precision agriculture such as: 

Possibility to fly without a line of sight due to the Drone being linked to a 5G network. The drone can be controlled from a distant location using a notebook connected to Internet with 5G, fiber or any high speed connection.

Marcos Elgueta from Loiter Systems piloted the drone using a Fixed Wireless Access 5G base station all while respecting regulations of line of sight. Elgueta did three different flight for three reasons: recognition, image capture, and fumigation.

Thanks to the low latency of 5G, the Drone was piloted in real time with a Joystick connected through 5G to the avionic equipment provided by Botlink. 

High definition streaming of video was obtained from the drone using a 5G LG smartphone equipped with Qualcomm chipse. Agronomist Cristian Becerra was 1000 Km away from Santiago in Puerto Varas city, watching in First Person View using a Smartphone mounted on a Cardboard, as if he was flying on the nose of the 5G Drone.

Image analysis with images captured every two seconds with two high-definition cameras (RGB and near-infrared spectroscopy filter). Every image is a piece of a puzzle stitched into two mosaic images of the field under analysis. All images transmitted weighted approximately 2 Gygabytes using the high throughput of 5G to the Geographer Gonzalo Zamorano.

The combination of the two mosaics in the cloud, using Edge Computing, was processed in minutes giving a precise analysis of healthy zones (in green), and yellow/red for zones where fumigation was required. Chemical efficiency of fumigation with a flight based on the images analyzed with high precision to prevent diseases, without over-fumigation where is not required. 

In commemoration of the inauguration of the 1st 5G Campus of Chile at the Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas of Universidad de Chile, the 5G Drone was presented to Government Authorities such as Minister of Transport & Telecommunications Gloria Hutt, Subsecretary of Telecommunications Pamela Gidi, Manager of Regulación & Corporate Relationships of Entel Manuel Araya, Attorney of the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo BID Yolanda Martinez and the Dean of the FCFM of Universidad de Chile Francisco Martínez. 

In the ceremony, Ericsson Country Manager Enzo Zunino stated, “Rural areas currently are the least covered by high-speed telecommunication, that´s why 5G enable high throughput with low latency to interact with machines such as tractors, water pumps, drones from remote areas, as well as taking the right decisions processed with the power of edge cloud computing and analytics”

Here is a glance at the 1st 5G Drone in the 5G Lab:

In a near future, when 5G is fully deployed in rural areas, the 5G Drones could be considered guards to the early stages of fires. Along with that, the drone could serve to helping guide fire fighters and searching for missing people with thermal cameras in lakes, rivers or coasts.

A safe place to recharge Drone batteries are telecommunication towers which act as Drone hangars waiting for flight missions remotely controlled by distant pilots. 5G unleashes the power of telecommunication with reliable connectivity, high throughput and low latency to control from remote locations enabling a new degree of productivity in Precision Agriculture.

5. 5G applied to biking

5G applied to biking demonstrated with ultra low latency of ENTEL and ERICSSON

To commemorate the launch of the 1st 5G Zone of Latin America using 3.500 MHz and 700MHz, ENTEL and ERICSSON demonstrated the extreme low latency of 5G, driving a bike with 2 smartphones connected into a VR goggles on January 19th 2021.

“Inspired by <<Imagine Possible>> the first Minimum Viable Product was developed combining 2 Smartphones within minimal latency between them. This 5G Biking application demonstrate that human vision can be assisted by 5G in order to drive a bike without balancing problems.” stated Roberto Cabanillas – Digital Service Director of Ericsson Chile.

Using Agile methodologies of Co-Creation ENTEL team of Innovation Department jointly with Ericsson Labs developed the final prototype for the 5G Launch combining 3D Designers, Engineers and lot of passion along 3 months.

The 5G Zone is built with Ericsson 5G Radio in 3,5 MHz using 700Mhz anchor bands processing in Ericsson 5G Non Stand Alone Core in ENTEL Data Centers of Chile.

The 5G Biking demonstration was launched in public with Sebastián Vásquez, who was world champion three time of Descent Mountain Bike.

The 5G Biking application was presented to the Chilean Government authorities such as Gloria Hutt Ministra de Transportes y Telecomunicaciones, Pamela Gidi Subsecretaria de Telecomunicaciones, Antonio Büchi ENTEL CEO, Manuel Araya Director of Regulaciones and Corporate Relationships of ENTEL.

Even if the 5G biking demonstration was experimental, some of the benefits of driving watching the real world from a 5G Smartphone are:

• Preventive alert of collision between the bike and cars, as well as pedestrian using the 5G protocol of Vehicle to Everything (V2X) and Lidar
• Night vision enhanced with sensibility of the camera
• SOS connectivity in case of an accident
• Geopositioning based on Satellite and the 5G precision location features for advertisement
• Connectivity between the bike and the smartphone to suggest the recommended gears based on the terrain, trip and ground conditions and heart beat of the cyclist.
• Entertainments while cycling
• Share streaming while cycling
• Surveillance applications of cyclist fleet management
• Assisted driving for differently-abled persons

5G assisted driving are going to become more popular while 5G is deployed massively. ENTEL and ERICSSON are paving the way of 5G with concrete use cases for a smarter and more inclusive society.